Get to know Jeff Nichols. The Arkansas native is batting 1000, writing and directing among the most beautiful and compelling American films being made. His latest, Midnight Special, is no different. But then again, it is very, very different.
You should know as little as possible going into this film because Nichols is the master of slow reveal, pulling you into a situation and exploiting your preconceived notions until you are wonderfully bewildered by the path the story takes.
Suffice it to say, Nichols mainstay Michael Shannon, as well as Joel Edgerton, are armed men in a seedy motel. They have a child in tow (Jaeden Lieberher – wonderful). Local news casts a dark image of the trio, but there’s also a Waco-esque religious community looking for the boy, not to mention the FBI. So, what the hell is going on?
Nichols knows, and he invites your curiosity as he upends expectations. The film toys with the clash between logic and the supernatural, not unlike the themes of Nichols’s masterpiece Take Shelter (also starring a magnificent Shannon). While moments of Midnight Special will feel more reminiscent of memorable films in the SciFi vein, what this filmmaker does with his subject is beautifully novel.
The film, like all of Nichols’s work, is deeply rooted in traditions and atmosphere specific to the American South, and the filmmaker boasts a deep and easy skill as a storyteller. He’s also truly gifted with casting.
Lieberher, who showed amazing natural talent in 2014’s St. Vincent, again offers a beautifully restrained central figure. Edgerton and Kirsten Dunst are likewise wonderful, both turning in nuanced performances that reflect Nichols’s uncanny way of dealing with the extraordinary in the most naturalistic way.
But Michael Shannon, a remarkable talent no matter what film he graces, anchors the film with a heartbreaking, award-worthy performance.
Midnight Special is just another gem of a film that allows Nichols and his extraordinary cast to find exceptional moments in both the outlandish and the terribly mundane, and that’s probably the skill that sets this filmmaker above nearly anyone else working today. He sees beyond expectations and asks you to do it, too.
We’re on a music kick. Last week we looked at the best rock star horror movies, so it seemed only natural to move on to the best horror musicals this week. At our house, this particular sub-genre might serves as a kind of bridge between the two of us, since Hope generally hates musicals while George appreciates them. And though it is true that Hope can find some love in her heart for a musical with a side of bloodletting, it turns out that George only likes actually good musicals. Which is to say, they disagree a bit on this list.
Dude, 1974 must have been nuts. Brian De Palma’s first and only musical is a Phantom of the Opera/Faust/The Picture of Dorian Gray mash up (with some Frankenstein, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, and more than a little Rocky Horror thrown in for good measure). That’s a heady mix, and while the film was nominated for an Oscar for its music, it isn’t exactly the classic you might expect.
A campy skewering of the soulless music industry, Phantom sees tiny Seventies staple Paul Williams as the Satan-esque Swan, a music executive with a contract for you to sign. Poor Winslow (William Finley) is just as wide-eyed about his music as all those would-be starlets are about their chances for fame and fortune in this evil world of pop super stardom.
Like many horror musicals, the film works best as a comedy, but Finley’s garish visage once he makes his transformation from idealistic musician to mutilated Phantom is pretty horrifically effective. The film as a whole is a hot Seventies mess, but that’s kind of the joy of it, really.
4. House (Hausu) (1977)
If Takashi Miike’s Happiness of the Katakuris were to marry Pee-wee’s Playhouse, this would be their offspring.
A spoof of sorts, Hausu tells the story of six uniform-clad high school girls named Gorgeous, Fantasy, Sweet, Melody, Kung Fu, and Mac. The nomenclature alone should clue you in on the film’s lunacy. The giggling sextet spend spring break at an aunt’s spooky house – or, in fact, a cheaply made set of an aunt’s spooky house. Not a single thing that follows makes sense, nor is it really meant to.
Expect puppets, random musical sequences, remarkably bad backdrops, slapstick humor, and an amazingly sunny disposition given the sheer volume of human dismemberment. The trippy nonsense wears a bit thin eventually. Luckily director Nobuhiko Obayashi’s film clocks in at under 90 minutes, so the screen goes dark before the novelty wears off.
3. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)
Here’s a bizarre idea for a musical: The barber upstairs kills his clients and the baker downstairs uses the bodies in her meat pies. Odd for a Broadway musical, yes, but for a Tim Burton film? That sounds a little more natural.
Burton’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is a full-on musical – Burton’s first – and every inch a stage play reproduction. For many films, this would be a criticism, but Burton’s knack for dark artificiality serves the project beautifully, and he achieves the perfect Dickensian Goth tone. His production is very stagy and theatrical, but never veers from his distinct, ghoulish visual flair.
As in most of Burton’s best efforts, Sweeney Todd stars Johnny Depp in the title role. Depp is unmistakably fantastic – consumed, morose, twisted with vengeance – and he’s in fine voice, to boot.
The supporting cast boasts a liltingly nefarious performance by Alan Rickman. As the judge whose sent an innocent Todd off in shackles, raped his wife, then took custody of his daughter, whom he leeringly admires, Rickman is wonderful as always. His duet with Depp on “Pretty Women” is the film’s real musical gem.
With Burton’s help, Depp found another dark, bizarre anti-hero to showcase his considerable talent. With Depp’s help, Burton gorgeously, grotesquely realized another macabre fantasy.
2. The Happiness of the Katakuris (2001)
Takashi Miike is an extremely prolific director. He makes a lot of musical films, a lot of kids’ movies, a lot of horror movies, and then this – a mashup of all of those things. Like Sound of Music with a tremendous body count.
The Katakuris just want to run a rustic mountain inn. They’re not murderers. They’re lovely – well, they’re losers, but they’re not bad people. Buying this piece of property did nothing to correct their luck, either because, my God, their guests do die.
You might call this a dark comedy if it weren’t so very brightly lit. It’s absurd, farcical, gruesome but sweet. There’s a lot of singing, some animation, a volcano, a bit of mystery, more singing, one death by sumo smothering, and love. It sounds weird, truly, but when it comes to weird, Miike is just getting started.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDfMXwRapNc
1. The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)
Surely you expected no other atop this list because, honestly, nothing else comes close. The most iconic of all horror musicals, The Rocky Horror Picture Show boasts the best soundtrack, the best performances, the best mad scientist, and quite possibly the most fun there is to be had (legally) at the movies.
I’m afraid you’ve touched on a rather tender subject there.
Tim Curry is utter perfection as Frank-N-Furter (A Scientist). The entire balance of the cast is also amazing, but no matter how many times you watch Curry step out of that elevator, abuse his servants, or seduce his houseguests, it never gets old.
Creator Richard O’Brien’s raucous, once controversial film about a sweet transvestite, a slut, an asshole, and a couple of domestics who sing, time warp, throw rice, animate monsters, swap partners, and finally put on a show is still as much fun as it ever was.
Once a subversive take on the classic musicals and sci-fi films of the 30s and 40s, Rocky Horror is now a high-camp icon of its own.
With Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, director Zack Snyder battles his own penchant for excess while combining the Marvel formula of assembly with the damaged psyche of Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy. And while Snyder is dealing with a few less avengers, his film makes Nolan look downright drunk on human kindness.
Utilizing an ambitious script from Chris Terri (Argo) and David S. Goyer (all three of Nolan’s Batman films), Snyder is not shy with metaphor or message. As spectacular events unfold in Metropolis and Gotham, we’re given an unflinching rumination on how 9/11 has changed us.
Terrorism, paranoia, torture, and toothless media are woven into more standard superhero tenets. This is a battle between God and man, and the film also has plenty of moments worthy of a classic Greek tragedy.
So there’s a lot going on here? Sometimes too much. Ideas are plentiful and often repeated, as are dream sequences and Snyder’s patented wide angle slow-motion set pieces. And really, do we need another ‘young Bruce Wayne watches his parents get shot’ sequence?
Speaking of Master Wayne…after all the uproar, Ben Affleck makes a fine caped crusader, as the hero’s square-jawed intensity fits perfectly into Affleck’s low-emotion comfort zone. The great Jeremy Irons brings some welcome badassed-ness to the role of Alfred, effortlessly stealing scenes and laying claim to the film’s most surprisingly interesting character.
In the other corner, Henry Cavill continues to impress as Clark Kent/Superman, finding a subtle nuance in the role that makes his ache for humanity ring true. Amy Adams gives us a Lois Lane that is smarter and sexier than ever, and her chemistry with Cavill brings a new depth to the iconic super couple.
To the delight of arch villain Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg, over the top), the Dark Knight and Man of Steel finally come to blows, and it is glorious. In fact, their battle makes the film’s final act feel a bit superfluous, save for the cheer-inducing entrance of the new Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot).
The ironic twist to her slightly-more-appropriate-for-crime-fighting outfit is the instant reminder of just how masculine the entire superhero universe remains. Still, there is enough mystery here to hold out hope that Wonder Woman’s upcoming stand alone film will be one of overdue substance.
After the rubble finally settles, Dawn of Justice is just that, as we get glimpses of the other “meta-humans” that will take their places in the upcoming Justice League franchise. Batman v Superman wanders, but it’s enough of an epic to make following it worthwhile.
For anyone waiting with bated breath for the conclusion of Tris Pryor’s heroic quest through the Divergent series, expect to be disappointed by The Divergent Series: Allegiant. The final book in the series has been split into two films – a choice we should, by this time, expect from a cash cow-ready industry.
For anyone hoping for a bit of entertainment regardless of the split, you should also expect to be disappointed. Director Robert Schwentke’s slick but soulless third act can’t overcome the dull pacing, superficial scripting, or one dimensional characters that have plagued the series since its inception.
Tris (Shailene Woodlely) broke from the factions that kept her society separated, then toppled the dictatorship that sought to oppress her people. Now she sees the same mistakes being made, but she believes there is something more beyond the wall around the city. She and her rag tag group of friends will find what’s out there – but what if it’s just more of the same?
Unfortunately for Tris and for all of us, that is exactly what the film offers. More and more and more of the exact same – all of it handled with far more energy and integrity in the Hunger Games series.
Woodley is a genuine talent, but she doesn’t seem to have the energy to even try, and who can blame her? She’s wasted in one more film where she does little more then look ponderous, then look thoughtful, now fierce but vulnerable.
Miles Teller – another actual talent – also returns as the woefully underused opportunist, and though his dialog is just as flat and obvious as everyone else’s, he does offer the only bright spots in an otherwise endless expanse of blandness.
Schwentke’s visual style offers slapped together images from Seventies SciFi, while his direction goes the extra mile when it comes to telegraphing every line, move, or event in the film. The final product is a by-the-numbers adolescent adventure lacking all energy and imagination.
From the moments the credits jolt onto the screen, 10 Cloverfield Lane keeps you on the edge of your seat.
More of a second cousin than a sequel to 2008’s Cloverfield, J.J. Abram’s-produced 10 Cloverfield Lane is a claustrophobic thriller. No found footage. No shaky camera. No perturbed kaiju.
Following a car crash, Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) awakens shackled in a locked basement room, attached to an IV. So she’s understandably wary when confronted with the basement’s owner Howard (John Goodman). He places a tray of food next to her and tells her his malevolent plan is to…keep her alive.
He informs her that while she was unconscious there’d been an attack and most people on the outside are either dead or heading in that direction. The air has been contaminated and they’ll have to stay underground for a year or two. Howard doesn’t know if the Russians or the Martians are to blame, but he’s pleased with his decision to build a bunker under his farmhouse.
Howard and Michelle are not alone. The other inhabitant of the bunker is seemingly easygoing Emmett (John Gallagher Jr.) whose injuries confuse Michelle as he says he sustained them in attempt to fight his way inside.
From there on out the movie asks the audience if Michelle can trust either of the two men or the situation that she thinks she has found herself in. It’s a vague enough description, I know, but to attempt to explain it in more depth would ruin a lot of the fun.
As you would hope, in a movie with this small of a cast, each of the three actors gives a strong performance. Winstead’s Michelle is delightfully observant, practical, and resourceful. Gallagher is wistful and charismatic. And Goodman shines, giving a performance reminiscent of Walter Sobchak in The Big Lebowski—bouncing from paranoid to menacing to eccentrically charming, often in the same scene.
First-time director Dan Trachtenberg ratchets up the tension as the movie progresses, finding the creepiness in even the most mundane domestic activities.
As we grow older, do we dare expect more out of life than “attending lectures at the YWCA and stealing cheese?”
Doris (Sally Field) doesn’t, but then she meets the charming and much younger John (Max Greenfield) in a crowded elevator, steals a pencil out of his backpack, and starts dreaming of something more.
Turns out they’re on the same elevator because they work at the same New York office. John is the new art director at a firm where Doris has done data entry for eons, and once he shows her a little kindness, we see Doris’s fantasies play out in hilarious fashion.
Doris is still reeling from the recent death of the mother she cared for, which prompts battles with her family (Stephen Root, Wendy McLendon-Covey) and her therapist (Elizabeth Reaser) over hoarding habits and a refusal to sell the family home. Meanwhile, Doris’s longtime best friend (Tyne Daly) worries about her foolish infatuation with someone “barely old enough to vote.”
Field’s return to a leading role is a total joy, and she elevates the film at every turn, making director Michael Showalter’s shaky focus much more palatable.
Showalter (lead writer on the Wet Hot franchise) adapts Laura Terruso’s short film Doris & the Intern with a a script assist from Terruso herself, but he can’t hide the seams from the two different approaches he is stitching together. In keeping the emphasis on Doris’s kooky nature and an ever-present feel good vibe, the moments of budding poignancy about aging and emotional trauma seem misplaced and seriously undercut.
Just enjoy the fun of Doris wading into the hipster pool, learning about social media and finding her way in a world often oblivious to those her age. It’s the type of character we’re used to laughing at, but Field makes it easy to laugh with her.
By approaching the love relationship central to Frozen as one between sisters, Disney made some strides toward rectifying the beauty-wealth-marriage focus of its long history of princess movies. Sure, they were still princesses, still impossibly beautiful, thin, wealthy, and white. But, you know, why rock the boat too hard?
Well, with Zootopia, Disney – not Pixar, not Dreamworks, but Disney proper – spins an amazingly relevant and of-the-moment political tale with real merit, and they do it with a frenetically paced, visually dazzling, perfectly cast movie.
When small town idealist Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin) becomes the first bunny cop in the big city of Zootopia, she finds the “you can be anything you want to be” motto a bit tough to realize. Her Chief, an imposing buffalo voiced to gruff perfection by Idris Elba, balks at this token recruit, assigning her to meter maid duties. But Hopps is determined to crack the case of the missing predators, even if it means compelling the reluctant assistance of wily con man fox Nick Wild (Jason Bateman – outstanding).
The casting is downright dreamy. Goodwin and Bateman have chemistry to spare, but every character is cast impeccably, boasting the spot-on talent of JK Simmons, Jenny Slate, Tommy Chong, Octavia Spencer, Alan Tudyk, and Shakira, among others.
In this astoundingly detailed, brilliantly conceived, and visually glorious urban mecca, prey and predator have long since given up their archaic, bloodthirsty ways in favor of peaceful coexistence. And while the adventure that follows is a vibrantly animated buddy cop mystery – smartly told and filled with laughs – the boldly expressed themes of diversity, prejudice, and empowerment are even more jaw dropping than the spectacular set pieces.
Co-directors Byron Howard (Tangled), Rich Moore (Wreck-It Ralph), and Jared Bush, working with a team of writers, pull of a truly amazing caper of their own. Are you looking for adorable anthropomorphic friends?
Zootopia is teeming with them.
Stunning 3D animation? Yep!
Characters with actual arcs, voiced by genuine talent? Oh my, yes.
Smart – like really, really, smart – writing that shares as many emotional moments as true laughs? Also yes.
What about a story that vividly articulates our own personal biases, those we may not realize we have until confronted with them? How about a story where the bad guys (Breaking Bad fans rejoice, by the way) are using the media to create a culture of fear specifically to oppress a minority population so they can remain comfortably on top?
Is this Disney, or a Republican primary?
If you worry that Zootopia is a preachy liberal finger-wagger, fear not. It is simply the most relevant Disney film to come along in at least a generation.
Shifting alliances, desperate men, deadly double-crosses, dirty cops and sacks of cash…Triple 9 doesn’t pretend it’s doing anything new, but it often finds effective ways to repackage the old hits.
Borrowing from a host of other cop thrillers from Heat to The Town, Triple 9 give us characters of varied shadiness taking orders from the Russian mob. Michael (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is a former Blackwater operative working with a crew that includes two Atlanta detectives (Anthony Mackie and Clifton Collins, Jr.) to pull a brazen heist that will help get a Russian crime boss out of Putin’s gulag.
But Irina, that boss’s wife (Kate Winslet) has one last job in mind for Michael and his boys, and she’s not shy about getting nasty to make sure they comply. Delivering will take a bigger diversion than usual, and a cop going down (a “triple 9”) would give them just the time they need.
Slowly, a new face on the force (Casey Affleck) and his seasoned-cop uncle (Woody Harrelson, sporting some unsettling dentures) start sniffing out the plan, and the countdown to a final confrontation is on.
Matt Cook’s script is plenty familiar, with thin spots in the narrative and character choices that don’t always ring true , but director John Hillcoat (The Road, The Proposition) is adept at making brutal worlds engaging. There is precious little light anywhere in Triple 9, but Hillcoat leans on his veteran ensemble and delivers enough stylized tension to keep you interested, even if you’re rarely guessing.
The unerring authenticity of The Witch makes it the most unnerving horror film in years.
Ideas of gender inequality, sexual awakening, slavish devotion to dogma, and isolationism roil beneath the surface of the film, yet the tale itself is deceptively simple. One family, fresh off the boat from England in 1630 and expelled from their puritanical village, sets up house and farm in a clearing near a wood.
There William (Ralph Ineson) and Katherine (Kate Dickie) will raise their five children: the infant Samuel, young twins Mercy (Ellie Grainger) and Jonas (Lucas Dawson), nearly adolescent Caleb (Harvey Scrimshaw), and the eldest, Tomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy), nearly a woman now.
Each performance is remarkable. The twins are enormously creepy and both parents are flawed in the most necessary and compelling ways. Young Scrimshaw offers layers and tenderness galore, leading to an astonishing scene it’s hard to imagine a child managing.
Still, it’s Taylor-Joy who not only anchors the film but gives it its vulnerable, burgeoning, ripening soul. She is flawless.
As a series of grim catastrophes befalls the family, members turn on members with ever-heightening hysteria. The Witch creates an atmosphere of the most intimate and unpleasant tension, a sense of anxiety that builds relentlessly and traps you along with this helpless, miserable family.
Every opportunity writer/director Roger Eggers has to make an obvious choice he discards, though not a single move feels inauthentic. Rather, every detail – whether lurid or mundane – feels peculiarly at home here. Even the most supernatural elements in the film feel appallingly true because of the reality of this world, much of which is owed to journals and documents of the time, from which Eggers pulled complete sections of dialog.
Though The Witch is Eggers’s first feature as filmmaker, his long career in art direction, production and costume design are evident in this flawlessly imagined and recreated period piece.
Equally important is the work of Eggers’s collaborators Mark Kovan, whose haunting score keeps you unnerved throughout, and cinematographer Jarin Blaschke. From frigid exteriors to candle-lit interiors, the debilitating isolation and oppressive intimacy created by Blaschke’s camera feed an atmosphere ripe for tragedy and for horror.
As frenzy and paranoia feed on ignorance and helplessness, tensions balloon to bursting. You are trapped as they are trapped in this inescapable mess, where man’s overanxious attempt to purge himself absolutely of his capacity for sin only opens him up to the true evil lurking, as it always is, in the woods.
R-rated super hero movies are few and far between, but there are some subjects that would be so neutered with a teen-friendly rating that the hero would cease to be. Like Deadpool.
A thug with a quick wit, foul mouth, a likeminded girl, and quite possibly a ring pop up his ass, Wade Wilson has it all – including inoperable cancer, which sends him into the arms of some very bad doctors. The rest of the film – in energetically non-chronological order – is the revenge plot.
Directing newcomer (longtime video game FX guy) Tim Miller gets the nod with this off-season but still highly anticipated Marvel flick, and he does two things quite well. He knows how to stage an action sequence – which is key, obviously. But more importantly, he understands the tone needed to pull this film off.
Deadpool was introduced onscreen back in 2009 in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, but those films are so serious. Miller understands that, to make the most of this character, humor is the name of the game.
An utterly unbridled Ryan Reynolds returns as the titular Super (yes) Hero (no), and though the actor’s reserve of talent has long been debated, few disagree that his brand of self-referential sarcasm and quippage beautifully suits this character.
T.J. Miller and Morena Baccarin go toe to toe with Reynolds, and Leslie Uggams gets a couple of good lines, too. I’m sorry – what?
Penned by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick – scribes behind the brilliant and hilarious genre mash up Zombieland – Deadpool is a nasty piece of fun from the opening credits (as magnificent a gag as any you’ll see for the entire 108 minute run time).
Even the sloppy and slow pieces – the inevitable X-Men tie ins, for instance – are sent up mercilessly, as if the writers and Reynolds himself know what the audience is thinking, which is: Who are these two lamos and why are they in this movie? Seriously, where’s Mystique?
All the sarcastic cuteness can wear thin, but Deadpool does not stoop to hard won lessons or self-sacrificing victories. It flips the bird at the Marvel formula, turns Ryan Reynolds into an avocado, and offers the most agreeably childish R-rated film of the young year.
